"Broke, Busted, and Out of Business"
The cost of military misadventures abroad and monetary meddling at home
by Bill Bonner
“The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed,
no matter which side he is on.”
-Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"
Poitou, France - “In one month, we have only advanced one kilometer and a half,” a Ukrainian medic told Kyiv Post. “We move forward by inches, but I don’t think it’s worth all the human resources and material that we have spent.”
Whatever else can be said about the Washington Post, its lead foreign policy commentator, David Ignatius, is a moron. The worst kind of moron…one who is very smart.
Last night, we watched the most recent version of “All Quiet on the Western Front.” It tells the story of WWI from the perspective of a German soldier. It’s a hard film to watch. Everyone dies in the mud. On prominent display is the blockheadedness of military leadership. In 1918, even though a whole generation of Germany’s young men had already been virtually wiped out… ‘The People’ were close to starvation and the war was clearly unwinnable…the brass insisted that there was light at the end of the tunnel. Germans just had to maintain their discipline, their courage…and persevere, they said.
Real Values? In Vietnam…Afghanistan too, the theme was the same – as announced by the government and rehearsed by the state media (The New York Times and The Washington Post). The light at the end of the tunnel was always on. (In Vietnam, it only went off when Walter Cronkite came back from a visit and pronounced the war unwinnable.)
And now, we hear it again. Here’s Pentagon spokesman David Ignatius, posing as a journalist: “The West’s most reckless antagonist has been rocked,” Ignatius writes. “NATO has grown much stronger with the additions of Sweden and Finland. Germany has weaned itself from dependence on Russian energy and, in many ways, rediscovered its sense of values.” What ‘values’ do you think he refers to? The Prussian values of 1914–1918…or Nazi values of 1940–1945?
The Ukrainian armed forces may have only reclaimed a kilometer or so of territory, but according to Ignatius, it has been a “triumphal summer” for NATO: “[F]or the United States and its NATO allies, these 18 months of war have been a strategic windfall, at relatively low cost (other than for the Ukrainians).”
Yep. The latest estimates tell us that about 380,000 soldiers have died so far. And civilians? We don’t know. As for the total financial cost, it is in the trillions… No one knows for sure, but the US – as the single largest sponsor of the conflict – will pay much of the cost. And as Madeleine Albright might put it if she were still alive, “it was worth it…because we secured a ‘strategic windfall.’” The point of today’s ramble: a few more strategic windfalls like that…and we’ll be broke, busted, and out of business.
That Basket of Deplorables: Putting this in perspective, our view is that America’s elites have become corrupt and that they have betrayed “The People” they are meant to serve. No longer do we have a government ‘of’ the people…no longer ‘by’ them…and no longer ‘for’ them. Instead, the elites have gotten richer and more powerful, while the common man has stewed in a malign broth – lower real incomes…a slowing economy…more rules and regulations…less influence over public policy (despite having the majority of votes)… higher consumer prices and a generous dollop of contempt coming down from the top. He, the typical voter, doesn’t think the government should encourage genital mutilation, or more foreign wars, or bigger deficits (though he is happy to have the money when it comes his way), or racism…or an ‘energy transition’ that may not work. For all these traditional views, he is regarded as ‘deplorable.’
It is not an accident that the elites have gotten so rich and so powerful. It is public policy, wrought by a government they control. Nor is it a surprise that they believe Russia must be brought to heel; they need an enemy to justify a $1.5 trillion Empire budget.
Nor were the Fed’s ‘lower for longer’ interest rates intended to serve ‘The People’. Everyone knew ultra-low rates were bound to create big financial problems down the road. Why did the Fed do it? Because it benefitted asset prices. Financial assets are the main source of wealth for the elite, but not for the masses.
Nor should it be puzzling that the federal government, rather than balance the budget, runs bigger and bigger deficits. Deficits give it more money to distribute to its pet projects – rewarding crony supporters and bribing key voter groups needed to win an election. All of these programs and policies provide wealth and status to the elite…but nothing but misery to the middle classes. But wait.
Self-Serving Elites: Aren’t elites always self-serving? Aren’t businessmen always greedy? Aren’t public servants always prone to sloth, incompetence, and corruption? Don’t governments always want to ‘print’ money? Why, since 1999 especially, has the gap between the top 10% and everybody else grown so wide? How come now? Why now does the media promote government policies rather than questioning them?
David Ignatius floated from one elite school to another…thence, the Wall Street Journal, the Paris Herald Tribune…the Washington Post. His feet never touched the hard ground of real work, making payroll or satisfying a customer. And now, he doesn’t challenge the feds’ Ukraine narrative; instead, he has become their porte-parole. He no longer speaks truth to power…he gives voice to power, pretending it is truth. Why? Why now? How come he is no Jack Anderson…no Edward R. Murrow…no Walter Cronkite? Ah…good question. Stay tuned; tomorrow we will reach for an answer."
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